Long Range Box Office Forecast: Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Ambulance, and Everything Everywhere All at Once

The spring release calendar continues to ramp up with this week’s outlook for the wide releases of April 8, headlined by Paramount Pictures and SEGA’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Michael Bay’s Ambulance, and A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once (expanding from limited release).

Our previous report on Morbius can be found here, but the second frame of next month could be just as (if not more) promising with the veritable trio of films slated to hit cinemas nationwide. Preliminary analysis and initial forecast ranges for each are below.

PROS:

• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 marks the first IP-based sequel catering to families and fans in quite awhile, and the timing should be ripe as the heart of spring approaches next month with the pandemic waning and national attention slowly moving away from virus concerns and restrictions.
  
  The first film, incidentally, was a breakout hit in early 2020 when its run was blunted by the beginning of the COVID-19 health crisis. Sonic the Hedgehog owns the top video game-based opening weekend in history with its $58 million three-day bow that February. The film closed out at $149 million domestically with plenty left in the tank before theaters were forced to close.
  
  Two years later, marketing for the sequel is hitting the right notes so far. A returning cast (James Marsden, Ben Schwartz, Jim Carrey, et al) with newcomer Idris Elba as the voice of Knuckles — a popular character from the games — is driving comparable fan enthusiasm via social metrics and trailer views as the first film prior to its debut. Pre-release models are also in the same ballpark as Uncharted ahead of its debut last month.
  
  With pent-up demand for a major family title and young males as the core demographic, Sonic 2 is very well-positioned as a theatrically exclusive release.

• Michael Bay returns to the theatrical space with an action-thriller in Ambulance that’s driving solid conversation as an original film. Early marketing is generating tracking comps on par with prior films of his, including 13 Hours and Pain & Gain.
  
  The male audience has been among the most reliable to show up during the pandemic recovery era, and a cast led by Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Eiza Gonzalez under the banner of Bay’s sellable name could generate healthy box office interest.

• Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All at Once is right up the alley of distributor A24, which has cultivated a fan base in a way exceedingly rare even for indie studios as they continue to experiment with new talent and genre-crossing.
  
  The Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis-led action/comedy has earned solid marks in very early tracking, not dissimilar from last year’s The Green Knight ahead of its summer debut that brought out faithful A24 followers.

CONS:

• The biggest X factor for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 remains the volatile nature of family audience sentiment. That market has hardly been tested since Sing 2 released over the holidays at the end of last year, so this film will provide major insight as to how parents are feeling as the industry heads into the late spring and summer movie seasons.
  
  Additionally, family-driven sequels have a tendency to decline from their predecessors’ results more often than they match or exceed them. Key examples here include the sequels to The LEGO Movie and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014). However, as noted, the first Sonic‘s pandemic-hampered run may render such comparisons for this sequel mostly irrelevant.
  
  The film also runs up against Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore in its second frame (Easter weekend) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in its fourth, so stretch weekends won’t be without competition for audience and premium screen space.

• With the Sonic sequel likely to pull a heavy young male audience, Ambulance will serve as the counter-programmer for adults on this weekend. Given that Bay is also coming off his own Netflix film, 6 Underground, this is another test of the kind of content audiences are willing to prioritize the theatrical experience for. Positive reviews and word of mouth will be important toward that goal.

• Further down the counter-programming alley is Everything Everywhere All at Once, and even though it’s planned as a wide expansion (following a March 25 limited release), this should still play to a mostly niche audience upfront given the high profile content opening against it.

Long Range Box Office Forecast & 2022 Calendar
(as of 3/10/22)

All above figures represent best and worst case scenarios for how each respective film is currently tracking based on existing market conditions and projected model fluctuation before release. These are not final forecasts.

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